Your Voice, Your Priorities Creating Winchester’s New Strategic Plan

Published on September 04, 2025

Have you ever thought, “What makes a city a good city to live in?” Maybe good schools, well-maintained infrastructure, responsive, professional first responders, a fiscally responsible budget, dependable City services, etc? And we surely could add more items to the list.

How do we, as a City, ensure that we are prioritizing, planning, executing, evaluating, and hiring to ensure that we can accomplish these goals? Not only that, but how do we ensure that we appropriately fund the right things?

One important part of the answer is our Strategic Plan. A well-designed Strategic Plan can guide our City Council and staff in developing priorities, funding those priorities, and clarifying how the residents of Winchester view “success.” In other words, it’s a roadmap that should set a vision of the future but still be actionable. It should help City leaders, community members, and other stakeholders get on the same page when it comes to important decisions.

The City’s current Strategic Plan expires next year, so we are working on drafting a new one for the next five years—from 2026 through 2031.

We need your help! You can do several things to help us better understand how the City is doing and what we need to focus on.

First, watch your mailbox for our Community Survey.

Every two years, the City surveys residents to determine what is going well and needs improvement. This year, your input will help us draft our new Strategic Plan. Just complete the survey and return it in the provided postage-paid envelope or go to winchesterva.gov/survey to submit it electronically. Not only that, if you complete the survey, you will be entered into a drawing for a $500 Visa gift card, courtesy of the company managing the survey for the City, ETC Institute.

Second, keep an eye on the City’s website and social media channels for Public Input Sessions on the Strategic Plan.

Stay tuned for listening sessions that will be held throughout the City, so we can incorporate your thoughts, ideas, recommendations, and concerns into the new Strategic Plan.

Together, we can chart the future of our community. If you have questions or ideas, please click the “Contact Us” link on winchesterva.gov and send us a note. We look forward to hearing from you!